Games Ecosystems Play - Episode 6

'Virtual Assistant Ecosystems'

Last session we had stopped at the following schematic of the Digital Assistants Ecosystem. As shown in the schematic, the overall ecosystem consists of – AI Engine, Assistant gadget, Virtual assistant, Slave device systems, User, Use cases, The Ecosystem platform and the Wifi / connectivity environment.

Today, the five students, Gaurav, Namita, Ruchika, Siddhesh and Surabhi have assembled in the Charchagrih for sharing each of the elements of the Ecosystem. Acharyaji came in and asked them to start immediately. Today Gaurav started the presentation.

 “Good morning everybody. Today I will be talking about the ‘Smart Speakers’ element of this Ecosystem. There are too many terminologies which are getting interchangeably used in this emerging area. So we will standardise the terminology for the purpose of better understanding.

‘Virtual Assistant’ – AI assistants like Alexa, Google, Siri, Corrtana – These are mostly given an identity in the form of some ‘light rings’ (Like Alexa) or some ‘wave insignia’ (Like Siri) on the devices to show their presence or activation.

‘Assistant Gadgets’ – Gadgets which directly interact with the user and the ‘Virtual assistant’ and also control other gadgets like lights, air-conditioners etc

‘Slave Gadgets’ – The gadgets which are controlled by the ‘Assistant Gadgets’ under the instructions of the user / Virtual Assistants.

This session we will look at the front-end element of these Ecosystems. The ‘Assistant Gadgets’. Most of these are ‘Smart Speakers’ (Like the Amazon Echo devices) but recently, multi-sensory products which are capable of taking voice and touch inputs have started coming up. So instead of calling them as ‘Smart Speakers’ we are calling them as ‘Assistant Gadgets’.

These gadgets are the main Hub in the Virtual Assistant Ecosystem.

Figure 1The First generation Echo

This category of devices has started with the humble speaker, pioneered by Amazon under the name Echo. The early devices were simple Microphone + Speaker devices. However, the makers of these devices are giving more and more sensory capabilities to these gadgets. The Echo Spot and the Echo Show are the new such kids on the block. These are Echo devices with a screen. It also has a front facing camera.In terms of the inter-relationship, the ‘Assistant Gadget’ it receives the command from the user/surrounding through microphones (Or video recorder or touch in some latest gadgets as we will see later), transmits the message to its server in the cloud, collects the relevant information from the cloud and communicates it back to the user through a speaker (Or video screen in some latest additions as we will see later). In some of the control applications, the ‘Assistant Gadget’ takes the input from the user and communicates the command to the Slave device / controlled device. For example, if the user gives the command to switch off the light, the ‘Smart Assistant’ transmits the same to the controller of the lamp as per its protocol and gets the job done.

 An intense competition has been going on even at this early stage in the ‘Assistant Gadget’ segment.

Google and Amazon, are the big ecosystem owners who are themselves making some of the best ‘Assistant Gadgets’ but they are also licencing their ‘Virtual Assistants’ for installing on 3rd party speaker manufacturers. The ‘Assistant Gadget’ can be classified depending on their manufacturer; ie. Own manufactured / Licensed manufacturer.  

1 – Made by the Ecosystem owners

Amazon – Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Plus, Echo Sub, Echo Spot, Echo Show, Echo Look.

Google – Google Home, Google Home Max, Google Home Mini, Google Home Hub.

Apple – Home Pod

2 – Made by licenced manufacturers

Alexa - Somos, Fabriq, Bose, Soul Tech, Wood Rhythm, iLuv, eufy, Logitech, Ellipsis, Polk Audio, Cowin, Libratone, Motorola

Google – Panasonic, Sony, Tichome, Polkaudio, Hogarcontrols, LG, JBL, Nest Cam, Sonos, Lenovo, Archos,

They can also be classified on the basis of sensory capabilities. ie. Only speaker / Speaker + Touch + Video.

1 – Only speaker

Amazon – Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Plus, Echo Sub,

Google – Google Home, Google Home Max, Google Home Mini, Google Home Hub,

2 – Speaker + Touch + Video

Amazon – Echo Spot, Echo Show, Echo Look.

Google – Google Home Hub,

Expected trends

Based on the current moves of the Ecosystems in this game and their past we can expect some future moves.

1 – Ubiquity - Obviously the manufacturers want to make these gadgets as pervasive as possible. They would want their ‘Virtual Assistant’ to be with you, interacting with you, working for you EVERY MOMENT OF YOUR LIFE. Sleeping or Awake. Inside or Outside. It gives great value to the customer and great benefits to the Ecosystem owner. In line with this, Amazon has recently launched a ‘Assistant Gadget’ to sit in the car – Amazon Auto. Parallely, Motorola has embedded Alexa in one of its upcoming mobile phone in its ‘Moto Z’. With the range multiplying by the day and with the growing appetite of the Ecosystem owners to launch newer and newer ‘Assistant Gadgets’ and licencing to more and more audio brands the number and variety of the ‘Assistant Gadgets’ are going to simply multiply.

It won’t be far when we will have a ‘Assistant Gadget’ in virtually every wall of the house and every personal gadget some way of the other. Already Amazon is rumoured to be launching Alexa powered smart glasses. And CNBC (Oct 2018) reports that “Microchip firm Qualcomm is joining Amazon.com to spread the use of Amazon's Alexa voice assistant in wireless headphones, the companies said on Monday.”

2 – Multi-sensory abilities – The VA’s already have started getting touch and see abilities. Slowly the only ‘Mic+Speaker’systems could become out of fashion. More and more gadgets with more and more capabilities like – Video, Projection, Touch, Hand writing, Temperature sensors etc. are sure to come up.

But like the mobile ecosystems, the customers are likely to follow a hierarchy of choices, deciding the Ecosystem choices first and Device choices next. To increase their device share, the device manufacturers could make their devices compatible to both the main Ecosystems as of now – Alexa and Google.

As of now, the clear leader is Amazon – Alexa due to their early mover advantage. But Google has already overtaken Amazon in the last few quarters and can be expected to widen the lead due to its near dominance in Mobile devices via Android.

Staying consistent with its policies till now, Apple is the only VA owner which has not licenced its Siri to other speaker manufacturers. We can expect this trend to continue.

Whatever the reasons, whoever the leader, the pace of innovation is being unleashed and customers would have exciting time making their choices. The Googles and Amazons of the world would become more and more inseparable part of our lives and we would be sharing more and more personal information on these platforms."

Gaurav was about to handover the session to Namita. Suddenly Acharyaji signalled to Gaurav. “Dear friends, you are doing a good job. I appreciate the work done by you. This type of Ecosystem is going to get very big in coming years And I am happy to see that we are not too late to start studying it. But we are out of time for today. Let us take the next elements of the Ecosystem in next session.”

By the way lets also understand that the ‘Virtual Assistant’ Ecosystem will not remain only in the Home. The likes of IBM Watson who have already made a mark in Artificial Intelligence are making their presence in the Enterprise / Institutional segment. But more about it some other time. Next episodes we will look at other parts of the ‘Virtual Assistant Ecosystems’ one by one.”

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CNBC Oct 2018 - https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/23/amazoncom-qualcomm-to-put-alexa-assistant-in-more-headphones.html

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Links to previous episodes -

Episode 5 - https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/games-ecosystems-play-episode-5-dr-atul-natu/

Episode 1 - https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/learning-games-season-1-dr-atul-natu/